Research Overview

The members of this lab consider ourselves “molecular architects” - we use the tools of Inorganic, Organic, and Materials Chemistry to construct functional materials using molecules as building blocks. Like architects, we design the supramolecular structure, then plan and oversee its construction via the self-assembly of molecular building blocks. Finally, we decorate the interior of our construct such that it best fulfils the purpose for which it was built.

The particular structures we work with are microporous, metal-organic framework materials, and we functionally design them to address challenges in selective catalysis and environmental detection. In the area of catalysis, we adopt the strategies employed by enzymes to transform reactants that would otherwise be prohibitively difficult to convert selectively. For detection, our primary interest is in the development of diagnostic tools that can be fabricated easily and that are amenable to application in low-resource environments, i.e. point-of-care diagnostics.